Arguments

A boolean controlling whether non-matching directories are included in the result.

link-transparency

If
nil
, then symbolic links are not followed. This means that returned names are not necessarily truenames, but has the useful feature that the
pathname-directory
of each pathname returned is the directory supplied as argument.

The default value of
link-transparency
is given by the special variable,
system:*directory-link-transparency*, which is initially non-
nil
on UNIX/Linux/Mac OS. By setting this variable to
nil
, you can get the old behavior of
directory
. On Windows, where the file system does not normally support symbolic links, this variable is initially
nil
.

non-existent-link-destinations

If this is non-
nil
, then the pathname pointed to by a symbolic link appears in the output whether or not this file actually exists. If
:link-transparency
is non-
nil
and
:non-existent-link-destinations
is
nil
(this is the default on UNIX/Linux/Mac OS), then symbolic links to nonexistent files do not appear.

The default value is
nil
.

Values

pathnames

A list of physical pathnames.

Description

directory
collects all the pathnames matching the given pathname.

directory
returns truenames, conforming to the ANSI specification for Common Lisp. Some programs may depend on the old behavior, however (and
directory
is slower if it has to find the truename for every file in the directory), and so two keyword arguments are available so that the old behavior can still be used:
link-transparency
and
non-existent-link-destinations
.

Because truenames are now returned, the entries
.
and
..
no longer show up in the output of
directory
. This means, for instance, that

(directory #P"/usr/users/")

does not include
#P"/usr"
, which is the truename of
#P"/usr/users/.."

The specification is unclear as to the appropriate behavior of
directory
in the presence of links to non-existent files or directories. For example, if the directory contains
foo
, which is a symbolic link to
bar
, and there is no file named
bar
, should
bar
show up in the directory listing? A keyword argument has been added which lets you control this behavior.

directories
, if non-
nil
, causes paths of directories that are sub-directories of the directory of the argument
pathname
to be included in the result, even if they do not match
pathname
in the name, type or version components.
The default value of
directories
is
nil
.

Note: File names containing the character
*
cannot be handled by LispWorks. This is because LispWorks uses
*
as a wildcard, so there can be confusion if a file name containing
*
is created, for example in the
pathnames
returned by
directory
.

Compatibility Note

The
:check-for-subs
argument, implemented in LispWorks 4.0.1 and previous versions, has been removed. This argument controlled whether directories in the result have null name components. This option is no longer valid since ANSI Common Lisp specifies that
directory
returns truenames.